Witch - By Fiona Horne Page 0,29

so creepy!’

‘So what did Bryce do?’ I asked, trying not to show that this was totally spooking me.

‘He just said no,’ Amelia said seriously. ‘He had to say it about twenty times, but eventually the ghost let go of him, and then it just faded away.’

I felt chilled. What can of worms had I opened? I was doing love spells with blood, and Bryce was being told by ghosts to go with them! Where did they want him to go? Where were we all going with this?

The afternoon classes passed in a blur. I passed Bryce once in the hallway but he looked the other way, which was incredibly depressing. I couldn’t wait for the day to be over so that I could go home and put this love-spell drama behind me. But there was no such luck – Matt was standing at the top of the school steps waiting for me.

‘Vania! Vania! Vania!’

I tried to avoid him by slipping around the side of the building, but he came running over to me. I was shocked to see that he had a huge black eye.

‘Matt! What happened?’

He looked at the ground sheepishly and then grinned. ‘Some of the guys gave me a hard time for buying you flowers, but I stood up for you!’ He rubbed at his eye. ‘It hurt, but you’re worth it.’

I wanted to tell him it served him right for spitting in my face, but try as I might, I couldn’t be that mean. So much for getting my revenge. So I just said, ‘Thank you, Matt.’

At this he grabbed my hands and wrapped them around his waist! I was so shocked I didn’t know what to do. All of a sudden I was conscious of the fact that he was older than me and a lot more experienced.

He bent his head to kiss me, but at the last second I managed to twist my head away. His mouth landed on my chin, catching part of my bottom lip on the way then slobbering all over the lower half of my face. It was disgusting!

So this was my first kiss. And unfortunately it was witnessed by the rest of the coven. Bryce looked dismayed, the twins looked impressed and Dean looked smug, no doubt congratulating himself on the success of the spell.

Meanwhile, I was once again seriously questioning my sanity for having performed the spell in the first place.

I finally managed to untangle my arms from around Matt’s torso and push him off me. ‘Matt,’ I said breathlessly, ‘I have to go . . . I have to do research for a school project, so I’ll see you tomorrow. Bye.’ I ran over to my coven before he could stop me.

‘Oh my gosh!’ squealed Alyssa. ‘He is in love with you!’

‘Hmmm, I’m not so sure about that.’ Amelia folded her arms and gave me a quizzical look.

‘Whatever,’ said Dean brightly. ‘Let’s go to the Purple Raven.’ He practically hauled me up the street ahead of the others. ‘Are we going to tell them?’ he hissed when they were out of earshot.

‘I think Amelia already knows. Whatever psychic shield the spell threw up is obviously wearing off now.’

‘Well, let’s own up before they take offence that we didn’t tell them about it in the first place,’ Dean said. I nodded.

We stopped and waited for the rest of the coven to catch up.

‘We have something to confess,’ I began.

‘I think we know,’ said Amelia and Alyssa together.

‘We figured that, but let me explain please,’ I said.

I looked to Bryce, who was frowning. ‘What do you have to confess? That Matt Rock likes you and you like him? That’s obvious.’ He was rolling his eyes.

‘Actually, Dean and I did a spell . . .’ I began my explanation hesitantly, but then a feeling of defiance came over me. What was I grovelling for? I had done a spell that worked. Why did I have to apologise for that? A rush of power started in my feet and sped all too quickly to my head. ‘And it worked!’ I lifted my chin.

‘What kind of spell?’ Bryce was looking at me like he didn’t want to hear the answer.

‘A love spell,’ I said proudly.

Alyssa shook her head. ‘And I thought Matt Rock liked you for real.’ She seemed genuinely upset.

‘Why did you need to do that?’ asked Bryce. He sounded disappointed, and my defiance evaporated, once again I was reminded that this stupid spell hadn’t been a good idea.

‘Well, it was